Easyriders Cinema Room

[easyrider]

Cool, what do you use to burn them?

I don't burn them...I just extract the data off them as save them to the server

 

[easyrider]

Hey mate,

You may be able to help me with something. I hate DVD discs myself, i have around 1000.

No idea how much space i would need on a NAS for those and it grows weekly.

Anyway, could you show me a pic of what you keep all your HDDs in? I have looked at 10tb nas Drives/boxes and they come in quit expensive. I'm looking for something i could keep adding to, but as cheap as poss.

It would be nice to find something with lots of space which i could but a couple TB into to begin.

Thanks buddy

I have a coolermaster stacker mate as the windows home server

 

[easyrider]

As multiple file vob's?

Yes or ISO's

TBH after watching HD content I can barely stand DVD's now.

 

[easyrider]

Try ripping to mkv then

All depends on the Bitrate

 

[easyrider]

Very nice and shows what can be done with a reasonable amount of cash.

Projectors really do make a world of difference.

How are you storing your movies with regards to backups. I ripped all my 200+ DVDs and then lost a drive (WD Green 1.5TB lumps of rubbish). Having now ripped around 300 DVDs/Blurays and HD-DVDs I am keeping a 1-for-1 copy.

Where are you looking to go / upgrade now ?

Nice job.

RB

Windows Home Server has Duplication within the storage pool...I backup all HD movies of the family kids etc...to external drives aswell as duplication within the pool and run duplication on the Videos, Photos, Music shares.

Not sure on the next upgrade..I'm happy with the current setup.

 

[easyrider]

Nice, so what do you end up with out of the 12GB storage as usable for non-backup (ie. live data) ?

RB

Its growing all the time...There is currently 2TB free...If I run low I just add another drive to the storage pool and the pool would increse to 14TB with 4TB free if I was to add another 2TB drive.

 

[easyrider]

Sure, I am just wondering where the space used for backups is accounted for.

What is the ratio for live to backup space ?. 1:1 ro 1:small amount for parity etc.

RB

I dunno I let WHS server deal with that

The Really important stuff is backed up to USB external drives too.

 

[easyrider]

Haha, fair enough. Using Fedora for my media server so was just interested in the differences.

Yeah, I have three copies of the important stuff like family photos as well.

Nice job, hopefully it will inspire others to join the home cinema club .

RB

Cool

How easy was that to setup?

 

[easyrider]

Well I started with CentOS and as that could not handle the new advanced format drives it was a nightmare. Then finding the WD Greens were really no good in a Raid 5 array (or any array by reports on the internet) added more hardship. Problems sourcing the right hardware for the server so I could connect all 20 bays and a few false starts also didn't help but it is all more or less sorted now.

Fedora 14 was easy enough. Straight install and then just setup samba via the GUI and sort out Selinux tagging or it will disable all access to the shares after it detects a possible intrusion..... That is really a bit of a pain but once you have tagged a drive correctly it is fine.

I chose Linux as I can script backups and a few other things although it is still pretty manual at the moment. I will also move on to NFS when I can get a client for the Win7 PC.

The Fedora server is running as good as gold though. Give or take the SeLinux security 'features' I have had no issues and even use FreeNX to remote desktop to it from Windows or use a telnet app from my phone if need be.

The big plus for me though is that if the OS dies / gets corrupted etc, I can just transport the drives into another machine running Fedora / Redhat and possibly even Debian (Unbuntu etc) and the drives should work without any data loss inc the raid array.

Having had problems with tagging drives in Windows and not being able to easily move them from machine to machine I have steered clear although it seems lots like the drive pool in WHS .

Oh my job is working on Solaris boxes so Linux is a pretty obvious choice for me.

RB

Cool

 

[easyrider]

Just seen this nice job there Easyrider.

Cheers dude

 

[easyrider]

First time viewer - wow just wow

Cheers dude.

If this thread can inspire others into making the leap to a home cinema then all is good

 

[easyrider]

Any changes planned easy? Or are you too busy enjoying it still? I know I would be.

No changes planned mate very happy with the setup so far

 

[easyrider]

What hardware are you using for Server?

i3 540 based system with 12tb of storage

 

[easyrider]

Just spent the last 3 hours reading from start to finish. Really great thread, an extremely good guide and a Fantastic end product. Congratulations on a project well done.

Thanks m8

Hi Easyrider,

Is your back wall with prjector screen black paint or a velvet type material? Please can you advise on cost and where bought from. Cheers.

I see at the start of the thread you painted it but the new pics etc it looks like velvet material.

Its like a very dark charcoal with Home made Bass Traps... Using Acoustic Transparent material.Details on how to build them in the thread m8

 

[easyrider]

You should go into business!

 

[easyrider]

I always think 'what if'. How do you find your current system 'fills' the space?

Very happy with it

 

[easyrider]

Easy, can I ask what hdds you have in your WHS (and if you stream HD from it at all)?

Seagate LP 2TB's and SAMSUNG HD203WI EcoGreen F3 5400- 2 TB

And yes I stream HD from it all. I have also tested streaming the same film to 3 locations at once without issue

 

[easyrider]

So the 5400s are fine? Good.

The 2TB 5400's can be quicker than older 7200 rpm drives

 

[easyrider]

I don't see any reason to upgrade to WHSv2011. No drive extender built in (ok there are now plugins but I'd rather something like that be part of the o/s), so I won't be doing.

I just don't know how to get around the 2TB folder limit on WHS 2011?

My HD folder is 4TB with duplication on and my home Family HD Videos is 2TB and growing.

I dont want to have to manage my Video over 2 or more folders on seperate drives.

Loosing DE is retarded to the extreme

 

[easyrider]

Folder limit ?. Do you mean drive partition limit ?. My stuff is categorised in separate folders (one per movie/music album etc) so I don't have a single folder with 2TB in.

If it is drive partition limit then I use spanning which is Windows version of JBOD so the data is spanned across a number of disks. Same risks as Raid 0 in that loose one disk and loose it all but then you can created two spanned arrays and then create either a raid1 array from then or just run a nightly robocopy scheduled task to keep them in sync (which is what I do).

WHS2011 also looses shared personal folders as well although you can set them up yourself if you wish too.

RB

I have my videos in the video share root on whs V1

How would I manage my videos with whs 2011?

Have like A-G on one 2TB disk and H-M on another 2TB drive?



I just want to copy my HD content to a video folder and forget they are there! Not fanny about

EDIT: Also just add \\server\vidoes as the root my HD content on XBMC I would have to add many roots just to access my video collection.